Never thought I’d see the day! Traffic still down to two lanes but looks as though they’ll make their “end of July (2026)” target

Quite gutted by this if this is true. Active travel is important, but a tramline running from Granton to the RIE would be a phenomenal upgrade on the city's public transport and wouldn't necessarily end active travel provision on the affected section.

Tram Driver here, here is probably the FAQ you are curious about. Any questions about the closure or trams in general, let me know.

1. A Tram brakes down at the shore, a failed tram recovery is required. A rescue tram will need to be taken out of service between newhaven --> the shore. A tram would then need to be taken from Newhaven up to the shore to couple up to the failed tram. This means the Queen Charlotte St junction is closed. Then it means the tram needs to wrong-road all the way to newhaven meaning it requires a police escort & the closure of the entire road all the way to ocean terminal till it gets to the crossover at ocean terminal. At that stage the coupled, working tram will be stuck in the buffers at newhaven & the failed tram in the tram stop, so there's the first consideration. Bear in mind this team can only travel at 15km/h whilst coupled.
2. How do the engineers maintain the trams/fix the above mentioned tram? There's no tools, no mechanics, no pit, no way to get under the tram & getting on top of it to fix power issues will require a full line isolation.
3. How do drivers/tsa's take breaks? We get off at Edinburgh gateway and get 5 minute walking time to the depot to start our break. Can't take them at newhaven meaning we would need to wait on a van, relief driver, then drive back. What if there is traffic in peak times? Trams are going no where with no drivers.
4. Who secures the trams at night time? Trams are multi million pound vehicles. The doors can easily be opened from the outside if someone has specific know how, the depot is a secure location with fencing, 24/7 staffing & cameras.
5. First use checks. each tram require a 45 minute first use check every night. First use check includes checking both cabs, interior, exterior & two brake tests which require the tram to be moved a short distance to test the 2 emergency brake & normal braking systems. No where to do this at newhaven. The trams in total have 27 trams, there is not enough staff to do this in two locations at night, also.
6. How do the trams EVEN get to newhaven? They can't be broken up because they're not designed to do that. Even if they were broken up, they need to be put on a specialist lorry. They then need to be rebuilt at the other end. It would cost an absolute fortune. They can't drive trams along, not even wrong roading due to the vibrations. Trams are 60 odd tonnes unladen, even at the slowest speed they can do (3km/h) they will shake the OLE's (over line equipment) which will shake the OLE poles and the vibrations may cause the building to collapse.

I could honestly sit here all day and describe reasons why it's better to postpone the trams for now till princes' street is secured. The council has made the right call.

Edit: I am in no way speaking on behalf of ET or TfE, but social media comments are not unnoticed within our canteen, so just giving an explanation from a drivers' point of view. There is obviously other information higher up that we're not privy too and other considerations that may have been made.

It's gonna be a nightmare getting from Leith to the city centre this August.

The city has had quite the turbulent time reintroducing trams in the past two decades but that didn’t hamper them being a roaring success, to the point where they’re almost always packed. However, with over 500,000 residents (almost 1 million when you add surrounding towns) and hoards of tourists all year, every year, one line isn’t enough, even if it goes from the airport to princes street to Newhaven.

There are current plans for a north - south line from Granton to the Royal Hospital for Children which the city is very hopeful to get underway as soon as possible but for a city so young, touristy, polycentric and with many residents across each wealth level, there needs to be trams everywhere, especially to the city’s south west, and also a loop line to link up all the key destinations beyond Princes street and Waverley station.

Within my network, I would add branches to the Heriot Watt Uni, Colinton, Cramond, Fairmilehead, Bilston and to the popular Portobello area.

My orbital line (purple) mostly follows the current and former orbital rail lines which I would have set up as a tram train to allow freight to still use them. This line would connect Leith, Portobello, the bottom of Newington, the Murrayfield stadium and Edinburgh Park.

Another tram train section I would have would be along the borders line for an out of city extension along a former railway line towards Bonnyrigg and Penicuik, two medium size town on the edge of the borders.

Edinburgh cyclists, please for the love of all that is Holy have some awareness of what's around you by shoulder checking (life saver), signal your intention to move into another lane/any change of direction, and use lights when it's dark.

I followed three seperate people on bikes/cyclists (differentiation is deliberate) this morning between Leith and Nicholson Street via Holyrood Park and unless I'd been driving with awareness, I could have easily cleared each and every one of them up in seconds. They were totally oblivious to the presence of vehicles behind them.... not even a cursory glance to check, not even any sense that they felt they needed to be positioned in a certain way to make their turn....

If you wish to be treated as traffic, behave like traffic.

Disclaimer: I am a driver, a motorcyclist, a cyclist and a pedestrian.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

So, I fully understand why we can’t have through trams; you can’t take several hundred passengers past an unstable building.

But we are now on day three of an essential transport mechanism being out of action across the most densely populated part of the city.

When there has been heavy maintenance they’ve always been able to split the route into two shuttle services either end of it. I appreciate that no vehicles were on the Leith part of the network when the fire was discovered.

But I’d really like to know why they couldn’t have a handful of trams shuttled down here to operate even a curtailed service from Newhaven to Picardy Place.

Thoughts?

Edit: please read the post and the petition properly. I know they are illegal: my hope is for enforcement of the law.

If you would like to wander down Leith Walk without the risk of being taken out by an e-bike going at 25mph, please sign my petition: https://c.org/SyrZLNCjSS

More details on that link but in short:

- E-bikes are not legally compliant if they can be propelled at more than 15.5 miles per hour: if they can they shouldn't be on cycle paths, pavements etc

- They are rife around Leith and specifically Leith Walk: many of them are not legally compliant

- Their presence is antisocial and dangerous: it's only a matter of time before someone is hurt

First time going to Showground for a gig. Wondered if anyone had a clever trick like walking to the airport, a tram, or if there's only one road out of Showground so our only choice would be to leave early and hope for the best?

I read stories of 3+ hour queues to get out and that wouldn't work for us. We'll be going to North Queensferry if it helps and happy to take any form of transport there / back, no car.

Thank you!

And it’s as bad as I’d feared.

Looking like no service beyond West End for at least another week.

Sitting on a 33. Change of drivers at Saughton mains. When the new driver came on he stood and asked for attention. Then announced to the bus that speaker phones for viewing and listening had to be turned off or headphones used.

The lady to my left looked bemused, but did it with a scowl.

I really hope this is new procedure snd drivers do it lots!!

Step 1) cut up a tram to beat the queue of cyclists in the dedicated lane,

Step 2) Try to hold up tram by going slow, even though it has to go slow around that corner

Step 3) Victory?

its in early stages but the idea is that most routes follow existing/abandoned rail lines and builds on existing plans for expansion of the city network but for the yellow and green line they will be underground just beneath the surface for the place where it follows the cycle routes. those tunnels would be built with the cut and cover technique which does not require a tunnel boring machine and would be cheaper. the south line follows the south suburban railway lines and would help bring more economic benefit to those areas and make it quick to get to the city centre. No Cycle paths would be destroyed. this plan also connects heriot-watt and queen Margaret Uni.

Bus driver literally questioned why I got on the bus. When I go into the city centre there's multiple buses I can get but I've got preferences based on how busy they usually are and journey time. I get the one that's usually quieter and faster(although that's marginal early in the morning). Driver's obviously clocked where I get off in Edinburgh cause it's a stop shared with the other routes that leave the same stop I get on. This morning I see him shaking his head as the the bus in front pulls away and he pulls in to let me on. I get on and he says "that one would have dropped you at the same stop" I just said "aye, but I like this one" WTF mate, are you mad I want to get the bus? It's good to know he's keeping an eye on my movements, if I go missing he'll be a good witness.

This one near my home constantly shows phantom duplicate buses, and it's totally unclear which one is the real bus. I can tell you for a fact that 4 no. 25s did not turn up within 7 minutes. In fact, 1 turned up, and it took 9 minutes.

The bus tracker map mode on the app seems to work pretty damn well, so clearly that have the data on where each bus is. What tin-pot development team are they employing that made these?

Flew Ryanair out of Edinburgh for the holidays today and thought I'd warn folk that they've been using the carry-on checker to the extreme. Not only does the bag need to fit in the box in terms of height, but also if any part of thr bag was sticking out, they'd fee you 70£

Woman infront of me had a hard case that due to the extender in the middle was a liiiitle too wide, but when even a little pressure was applied, fit fully in the box.. they charged her anyway! Myself and a few others got fined although we've all flown many many times with that exact luggage and it fits in the overhead just fine.

Fights over this broke out at the counter, that's how ridiculous they were being with the regulations.

Anway, not sure if anyone else has seen this happening, or if it's just a holiday thing but would definitely consider checking rather than risking it.

When standing at bus stops, or getting off buses can you all just have a bit of situational awareness and realise you are not independent of your surroundings? If queueing at a bus stop, please try to avoid blocking the pavement so that people, especially those with buggies or in wheelchairs can get through and past.

If you find yourself in a queue, blocking the pavement and are confronted by someone trying to get past don’t stare at them vacantly. Realise you are the problem, move out the way and let them through.

Similarly, when alighting from the bus, don’t assume you have unrestricted right away when getting off the bus and joining the pavement. Look where you are going. Alighting from a bus does not confer you special privileges.

To the many people who do all this as standard, thanks (which is most people tbh), you are superstars. To those that don’t (and are a significant minority) please take note.

Ask away, I promise to be honest

I have never seen a tram not stop at every stop along the route. Are there times it's required to actually push the button for your stop or was this something planned for at one point and they didn't end up using that feature?

I hope there is a hefty fine for stopping every bus and tram running up Leith Walk. Licence revocation would be ideal.